County eyes revisions to zoning plan, updated mapping

The Cheboygan County Community Development Department has formalized a plan to revise many of the ordinances uses by the zoning department, over the next five years.

Community Development Director Steve Schnell said this is the time of year the zoning department develops its work plan.

“You have an adopted master plan,” Schnell told the Cheboygan County Planning Commission at its March 5 meeting. “A portion of that plan is the zoning plan, which happens to have target years for revisions starting this year.”

According to Schnell, there are six items targeted this year including updating sign standards to allow them to be proportional to the size of the building façade and accommodating commercial storage uses.

“Some of these other ones, refining for clarity of allowable uses in each district, we seem to imply similar uses in different districts that are intended to be the same. But we don’t word them the same, and it causes a lot of confusion,” Schnell said. “Luckily, it hasn’t caused us any legal problems yet.”

Schnell said it would be very helpful to many people to condense the amount of uses and still describe them in detail.

“Shoe repair probably isn’t one we need to have in there anymore. That type of thing can be removed and made more general,” he said.

Schnell said the zoning plan needs to allow for more flexibility in industrial zoned areas.

“At one point the movie industry was a real big push in the state of Michigan, medical research, renewable energy, indoor recreation, IT — information technology and office uses, they could be a little more specific,” Schnell said.

The revision, Schnell said, is reasonably important from a staff perspective because the office gets a large volume of calls from people such as realtors and other professionals, as well as property owners, who want to know where their homes are located in regard to zoning districts.

The Community Development Department also wants to create a new, user-friendly zoning map.

“A big part of why we can’t just hand them a map is because there is such a hierarchy in the zoning ordinance in the way it is written. Lake and stream applies in certain areas, but not in commercial and industrial. Platted subdivisions are residential, unless there is a commercial zoning district overlaying that,” Schnell said. “It’s that type of hierarchy that isn’t properly shown on any official zoning map.”

Schnell said there have been many different interpretations of the map which have raised issues, for example, in the lake and stream district.

“For a lot of people it’s difficult to visualize when you just say 500 feet from a lake, stream or intermittent stream throughout the county. What does that really mean? Where are those zoning districts,” Schnell said. “More and more we are getting calls for, ‘Can we just see your zoning map online?’ It would be nice to be able to put it all on one map.”

According to Schnell, there have been significant steps taken to put all of the information on one map. Before they can present the map to the public, it must be determined whether it is accurate.

“To make this more appropriate, one idea would be to have these revert back to their underlying zoning district. You could still keep the protections, the intent of the lake and stream zoning districts, is like the setbacks,” Schnell said. “You want people set back from the water, so it doesn’t contaminate it. Whether it’s just water or wetlands, or an intermittent stream, you do want some protections still.”

Planning Commission Vice-Chair Harold Borowicz said some places considered intermittent streams are very intermittent.

“We’re talking decades,” he said. “There’s an intermittent stream on my property. There’s been water in there one time, and this will probably be the second time. I have owned that property for 43 years.”

Borowicz said just because something is designated on the map a certain way, doesn’t mean that is what it is. He said he can farm right through the intermittent stream without a bit of problem nearly the entire year and never slip a tire.

“It’s not really a waterway. It’s just a place where, if you happen to have a flood, water runs there,” he said. “That does not make it an intermittent stream.”

Schnell said intermittent streams are a good thing to look at when revising the plan. Detailed consideration should be given to what does and what does not need to be protected. There will be some classifications to look at when revising the plan to determine what are considered wetlands or intermittent streams.

“The purpose would be to diminish this blue area (on the map) quite a bit. Not removing the protections, but changing it so that it is way more appropriate than it is right now,” Schnell said. “And then, moving forward with putting that on one official map. It’s something we would have online for 24/7 access to realtors and appraisers. It would be a quantum leap forward for us in customer service, having it on there.”

Once this map is available, Schnell said he would still encourage people to call the office to get the official ruling on what their property is zoned.

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